It is the third Sunday of December. And one day before the Great Conjunction of 2020. We haven’t had a clear night sky here since last Thursday. Its partly cloudy out right now and I’m hoping the weather will cooperate for this event.

I asked Niles if he wanted to come over for pizza today but he said that he was going to be too busy preparing for the Christmas holiday. Even when you are busy, you still have to eat. I offered to make some pizzas which I could deliver. He took up the offer for the pizza but came to pick them up instead. I guess he didn’t feel like tipping the delivery driver.

I’ve used olive oil in the dough. I’ve used shortening. The last fat to try is good old butter.

When I used shortening, I put in two tablespoons for 500 g of flour. I decided to do the same for the butter. I was making up a bigger batch of dough for today so I put in four tablespoons with 1,000 g of flour. I nuked it in the microwave for a minute to liquefy but the splattering and hot bowl shows that I probably should have used a shorter time.

The dough was stickier than normal and I think this was simply due to there being more liquid with the butter. I dusted it with some flour while kneading and that was enough to make the dough manageable.

Five pizzas to make today.

I opened a package of the skim milk mozzarella and it weighed out to be 476 g. No blends today and the usual amount of 100 g of cheese per pizza wasn’t going to work. To stretch it out, pizzas with toppings would get 80 g of cheese while pizzas without toppings would get the full 100 g.

Mise en place for today’s bake:

I did buy some new parmesan cheese and sprinkled a bit of that on each pizza below the the mozzarella. Some say you should never do this. I’ve seen plenty of people on YouTube do this. I tried it. It is fine.

The dough yield was perfect for six dough balls at 275 g each. There was a really small amount of dough left over so I made a super-mini pizza first.

This doesn’t take long to cook at all and makes a nice snack to get started for the day.

I had both pizza stones in the oven today to help pick up the pace. First up was Ben’s pizza with pepperoni:

Ben said that it tasted as good as it looked.

Next up were the two pizzas for Niles. One with onions and banana peppers and one with only cheese. The pizza with toppings went in first and was placed on the stone at the bottom of the oven:

Niles likes things extra crispy with a side of char so that looked great to him. To me the crust was burnt on the top. The cheese pizza went in on the top stone four minutes after the previous pizza was placed on the bottom stone.

The pizza was pulled out at seven minutes. It looked great on top but appeared to be undercooked on the bottom. We threw it back in the oven for another minute to try and improve on that. Niles said it ended up tasting good even though it didn’t have the nice browning underneath. I was too aggressive at moving fast with these pizzas and I didn’t allow enough time for the top stone to recharge.

A happy customer.

The next pizza was for Zach which was pepperoni with light onion and light black olives. This pizza was placed on the bottom stone:

Once again, burnt on the one side. I didn’t learn my lesson from the previous pizza. The stone down there is way hotter than I was expecting. I usually flip the pizza around when there is four minutes remaining on the timer. I should change that to five and ensure that I spin the pizza a full 180 degrees especially if there is uneven browning. Proper spinning is the key to success. I took this pizza instead and reserved the last one for Zach.

I could taste the butter in the pizza crust but it wasn’t as pronounced as I was expecting. Niles said the same thing. There is a huge difference in taste between a dough with olive oil and a dough with shortening. I’m not so sure there is much between doughs with olive oil and butter. Or at least with the quantities that I used. It was interesting but not remarkable. Maybe slathering the crust with butter would be more effective.

Now it is time for the last pizza and I will pay attention while this one is baking.

That one looks so much better. Zach said it tasted great but I left a little too much flour on the bottom of the crust.

I started baking the pizzas at 12:35pm and finished all five at 1:50pm. Next time I just need to ensure there is enough time for each stone to recharge and that I closely watch the pizzas being baked on the bottom stone.